As we have more than once said already, the Highlands are in a state of transition, though, we think, near the end of it; and we have no doubt that ere long both proprietors and tenants will find out the way to manage the land most profitable for both, and life there will be as comfortable, and quiet, and undisturbed by agitations of any kind, as it is in any other part of the country.
Since the date of the New Statistical Account and of Sir J. M’Neill’s Report, the same processes have been going on in the Highlands with the same results as during the previous half century. The old population have in many places been removed from their small crofts to make way for large sheep-farmers, sheep having in some districts been giving place to deer, and a large emigration has been going on. Much discontent and bitter writing have of course been caused by these proceedings, but there is no doubt that, as a whole, the Highlands are rapidly improving, although improvement has doubtless come through much tribulation. Except, perhaps, a few of the remoter districts, the Highlands generally are as far forward as the rest of the country. Agriculture is as good, the Highland sheep and cattle are famous, the people are about as comfortable as lowlanders in the same circumstances; education is well diffused; churches of all sects are plentiful, and ere long, doubtless, so far as outward circumstances are concerned, there will be no difference between the Highlands and Lowlands. How the universal improvement of the Highlands is mainly to be accomplished, we shall state in the words of Sir John M’Neill. What he says refers to the state of the country during the distress of 1851, but they apply equally well at the present day.
“It is evident that, were the population reduced to the number that can live in tolerable comfort, that change alone would not secure the future prosperity and independence of those who remain. It may be doubted whether any specific measures calculated to have a material influence on the result, could now be suggested that have not repeatedly been proposed. Increased and improved means of education would tend to enlighten the people, and to fit them for seeking their livelihood in distant places, as well as tend to break the bonds that now confine them to their native localities. But, to accomplish these objects, education must not be confined to reading, writing, and arithmetic. The object of all education is not less to excite the desire for knowledge, than to furnish the means of acquiring it; and in this respect, education in the Highlands is greatly deficient. Instruction in agriculture and the management of stock would facilitate the production of the means of subsistence. A more secure tenure of the lands they occupy would tend to make industrious and respectable crofters more diligent and successful cultivators. But the effects of all such measures depends on the spirit and manner in which they are carried out, as well as on the general management with which they are connected throughout a series of years. It is, no doubt, in the power of every proprietor to promote or retard advancement, and he is justly responsible for the manner in which he uses that power; but its extent appears to have been much overrated. The circumstances that determine the progress of such a people as the inhabitants of those districts, in the vicinity, and forming a part of a great nation far advanced in knowledge and in wealth, appear to be chiefly those which determine the amount of intercourse between them. Where that intercourse is easy and constant, the process of assimilation proceeds rapidly, and the result is as certain as that of opening the sluices in the ascending lock of a canal. Where that intercourse is impeded, or has not been established, it may perhaps be possible to institute a separate local civilization, an isolated social progress; but an instance of its successful accomplishment is not to be found in those districts.
“Whatever tends to facilitate and promote intercourse between the distressed districts and the more advanced parts of the country, tends to assimilate the habits and modes of life of their inhabitants, and, therefore, to promote education, industry, good management, and everything in which the great body excels the small portion that is to be assimilated to it.”[92]
Notwithstanding the immense number of people who have emigrated from the Highlands during the last 100 years, the population of the six chief Highland counties, including the Islands, was in 1861 upwards of 100,000 more than it was in 1755. In the latter year the number of inhabitants in Argyll, Inverness, Caithness, Perth, Ross, and Sutherland, was 332,332; in 1790–98 it was 392,263, which, by 1821, had increased to 447,307; in 1861 it had reached 449,875. Thus, although latterly, happily, the rate of increase has been small compared with what it was during last century, any fear of the depopulation of the Highlands is totally unfounded.
Until lately, the great majority of Highland emigrants preferred British America to any other colony, and at the present day Cape Breton, Prince Edward’s Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and many other districts of British North America, contain a large Highland population, proud of their origin, and in many instances still maintaining their original Gaelic. One of the earliest Highland settlements was, however, in Georgia, where in 1738, a Captain Mackintosh settled along with a considerable number of followers from Inverness-shire. Hence the settlement was called New Inverness.[93] The favourite destination, however, of the earlier Highland emigrants was North Carolina, to which, from about 1760 till the breaking out of the American war, many hundreds removed from Skye and other of the Western Islands. During that war these colonists almost to a man adhered to the British Government, and formed themselves into the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment, which did good service, as will be seen in the account of the Highland Regiments. At the conclusion of the war, many settled in Carolina, while others removed to Canada, where land was allotted to them by Government. That the descendants of these early settlers still cherish the old Highland spirit, is testified to by all travellers; some interesting notices of their present condition maybe seen in Mr David Macrae’s American Sketches (1869). Till quite lately, Gaelic sermons were preached to them, and the language of their forefathers we believe has not yet fallen into disuse in the district, being spoken even by some of the negroes. Those who emigrated to this region seem mostly to have been tacksmen, while many of the farmers and cottars settled in British America. Although their fortunes do not seem to have come up to the expectations of themselves and those who sent them out, still there is no doubt that their condition after emigration was in almost every respect far better than it was before, and many of their descendants now occupy responsible and prominent positions in the colony, while all seem to be as comfortable as the most well-to-do Scottish farmers having the advantage of the latter in being proprietors of their own farms. According to the Earl of Selkirk, who himself took out and settled several bands of colonists, “the settlers had every incitement to vigorous exertion from the nature of their tenure. They were allowed to purchase in fee-simple, and to a certain extent on credit. From 50 to 100 acres were allotted to each family at a very moderate price, but none was given gratuitously. To accommodate those who had no superfluity of capital, they were not required to pay the price in full, till the third or fourth year of their possession; and in that time an industrious man may have it in his power to discharge his debt out of the produce of the land itself.”[94] Those who went out without capital at all, could, such was the high rate of wages, soon save as much as would enable them to undertake the management of land of their own. That the Highlanders were as capable of hand and good labour as the lowlanders, is proved by the way they set to work in these colonies, when they were entirely freed from oppression, and dependence, and charity, and had to depend entirely on their own exertions.
Besides the above settlements, the mass of the population in Caledonia County, State of New York, are of Highland extraction, and there are large settlements in the State of Ohio, besides numerous families and individual settlers in other parts of the United States. Highland names were numerous among the generals of the United States army on both sides in the late civil war.[95]
The fondness of these settlers for the old country, and all that is characteristic of it, is well shown by an anecdote told in Campbell’s Travels in North America (1793). The spirit manifested here is, we believe, as strong even at the present day when hundreds will flock from many miles around to hear a Gaelic sermon by a Scotch minister. Campbell, in his travels in British America, mainly undertaken with the purpose of seeing how the new Highland colonists were succeeding, called at the house of a Mr Angus Mackintosh on the Nashwack. He was from Inverness-shire, and his wife told Campbell they had every necessary of life in abundance on their own property, but there was one thing which she wished much to have—that was heather. “And as she had heard there was an island in the Gulf of St Lawrence, opposite to the mouth of the Merimashee river, where it grew, and as she understood I was going that way, she earnestly entreated I would bring her two or three stalks, or cows as she called it, which she would plant on a barren brae behind her house where she supposed it would grow; that she made the same request to several going that way, but had not got any of it, which she knew would greatly beautify the place; for, said she, ‘This is an ugly country that has no heather; I never yet saw any good or pleasant place without it.’” Latterly, very large numbers of Highlanders have settled in Australia and New Zealand, where, by all accounts, they are in every respect as successful as the most industrious lowland emigrants.
No doubt much immediate suffering and bitterness was caused when the Highlanders were compelled to leave their native land, which by no means treated them kindly; but whether emigration has been disastrous to the Highlands or not, there can be no doubt of its ultimate unspeakable benefit to the Highland emigrants themselves, and to the colonies in which they have settled. Few, we believe, however tempting the offer, would care to quit their adopted home, and return to the bleak hills and rugged shores of their native land.